Nurses around the world deserve praise and respect for everything they do to ensure patients get top-notch care and support throughout their health struggles.
In the last couple of years, the efforts of nurses and other healthcare workers have been especially vital amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. While all nurses are heroes, here are a few famous ones whose achievements helped to revolutionize the health industry and the world.
Dorothea DixGetty Images
Dorothea Dix
Known as a pioneer of the nursing field, Dorothea Dix worked to improve the conditions of the mentally ill, incarcerated and indigigenous populations. She challenged how mental hospitals were giving treatment to patients, lobbied politicians for reform, and eventually helped establish asylums in multiple states. Dix volunteered during the Civil War and was later named Superintendent of Army Nurses for the Union Army.
Clara Barton
While having no formal nursing training, Clara Barton volunteered during the CIvil War by giving care and supplies to Union soldiers. After the war, Barton helped reconnect troops with their families by starting the Office of Missing Soldiers. After being exposed to the humanitarian efforts of the Red Cross in Europe, Barton returned to the U.S. and established the American Red Cross in 1881. She remained president of the organization until retiring in 1904.
English nursing pioneer, healthcare reformer and Crimean War heroine, Florence Nightingale (1820 - 1910)Getty Images
Florence Nightingale
Considered the founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale rose to fame for her efforts training nurses during the Crimean War. She also helped improve sanitary conditions at war hospitals, which led to a major decrease in mortality rates. In 1860, she established the Nightingale School of Nursing, which is now part of King’s College London in England. In Nightingale’s honor, National Nurses Week ends every year on her birthday, May 12th.
Mary Eliza Mahoney
Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first African American to study and become a licensed trained nurse. In 1879, she graduated from the New England Hospital for Women and Children's Nursing School, where she had previously worked as a cook, janitor and washer. In 1908, she helped co-found the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN).
The NACGN worked to end discrimination in the nursing industry and was merged into the American Nurses Association in 1951.
American social reformer and founder of the birth control movement Margaret Sanger (1883 - 1966) at the Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference in New York CityGeneral Photographic Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Margaret Sanger
Regarded as the founder of the birth control movement, Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic after completing a nursing program at White Plains Hospital in New York. Sanger lobbied for the legalization of contraceptives and funded research that eventually led to the development of the first FDA-approved oral contraceptive in 1960. A lifelong advocate for reproductive rights, Sanger founded the American Birth Control League, which later became Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
